I knew that a country without a patent office and good patent laws was just a crab, and couldn't travel any way but sideways or backways.

Mark Twain
"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"

An inventor is a man who looks around upon the world, and is not content with things as they are; he wants to improve whatever he sees; he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea; the spirit of invention possesses him, seeing materialization.

Alexander Graham Bell

The object of the patent law is to secure inventors what they have actually invented or discovered, and it ought not to be defeated by a too strict and technical adherence to the letter of the statute or by the application of artificial rules of interpretation.